Follow PR Daily on:

‘Tweet’ becomes an official word

It’s either a sign of progress or the mark of a decaying society, but “tweet” (as a social media term) is now officially a word.

The Oxford English Dictionary has added tweet as both a noun and a verb. The following meaning has been added to the previous bird-related definitions: “To make a posting on the social networking service Twitter. Also: to use Twitter regularly or habitually.”

John Simpson, chief editor of the Oxford English Dictionary, had this to say about the move in a blog post:

“The noun and verb tweet (in the social-networking sense) has just been added to the OED. This breaks at least one OED rule, namely that a new word needs to be current for ten years before consideration for inclusion. But it seems to be catching on.”

The OED had also added social-media-related entries for the words “follow” and “follower.”